People Australia

David McLelland, 1932

Sydney Morning Herald, 7 June 1932, p 12

David McLelland (1881-1968) blacksmith, trade union official and politician

Birth: 12 August 1881, Irvine, Ayrshire Scotland, son of Alexander McLelland (1855-1933), coachman, and Helen, née McDonald (1858-1908). Marriage: 1903 at Paisley, Scotland to Mary Shaw (1878-1965). They had two daughters and one son. Death: 8 September 1968 in a convalescent hospital, Drummoyne, Sydney, New South Wales; usual residence Byrne Avenue, Five Dock, Sydney. Religion: Presbyterian. 

• Educated at primary school, Scotland, and lived at Paisley where he was an apprenticed blacksmith in 1901.
• Arrived at Brisbane, Queensland, aboard the Durham on 1 September 1911. Worked as a blacksmith at Ipswich Railway Workshops.
• Moved to Sydney in 1916. Employed as a blacksmith at Cockatoo Island and Mort’s Dock.
• Organised Blacksmiths Society after the big tramway strike of 1912. General secretary of the Blacksmiths Society from 1918 to 1930 and 1939 to 1944. After defeat undertook correspondence course in accountancy.
• Member of the central executive of the Australian Labor Party in 1920-1923, 1924-1926.
• Contested seat of Drummoyne in 1927. Elected Labor member of the Legislative Assembly for Drummoyne on 25 October 1930. Was defeated on 18 May 1932.
• Secretary of the Australian Institute of Political Science until 1939. Secretary of the Metal Trades Federation of Australia from 1945 until he retired in 1961.
• Board of management member of Drummoyne Presbyterian church.
• Wife was praised for “fine work on behalf of charitable and social activities” in the Drummoyne district.
• Cause of death: senile arteriosclerosis.

Sources
Labor Daily (Sydney), 13 January 1927; Heather Radi, Peter Spearritt & Elizabeth Hinton (eds), Biographical Register of the NSW Parliament 1901-1970 (Canberra, 1979).